Peru: June 2022
I arrived in South America in mid-June, not really knowing what to expect. The opportunity was simultaneously long-anticipated and unexpected: the summer of 2020, I had been planning on traveling with a program that emphasizes sustainable service learning, in which high school students immerse themselves in a new culture while contributing to key initiatives in the community they are staying in. Since the trip had been cancelled due to Covid, the possibility of using the credit in the future hung over my head. I didn’t think that I was going to have the chance to use it this summer, so when I seized the opportunity just a couple of months prior, it was almost time to leave for Peru.
I flew to Cusco, Peru on June 14, where I traveled through windy roads to the small Incan town of Ollantaytambo (experiencing some car/altitude sickeness along the way…). There, I met up with the others, young people from across the United States, who I would be traveling with. The town itself is beautiful. Nestled in the Andes, the mountains hardly feel real as they surround you from every direction. The Plaza de Armas in the center of the town and the three small, key streets branching from it are made of cobblestone and full of daily life. After the most beautiful sunsets, I would find myself staring into the sea of stars from the roof.
A key aspect of the trip was service learning. Before getting directly involved in a community education initiative, we learned the basic principles of the difference between the service that we would be doing and voluntourism. In short, we were doing service that the community had asked us to do, rather than assuming their needs for our personal benefit. Over the course of the trip, we worked to improve the conditions of two dormitories in the Sacred Valley that allow girls from rural communities the opportunity to attend high school. This initiative is called the Sacred Valley Project, and through it, dozens of girls have graduated high school and gone on to receive higher education. Talking to some of the girls at the dormitory in Calca one Sunday afternoon, they told us that they bring their knowledge back to their own communities to encourage other girls to also dream bigger and reach for the future. I thought a lot about how intersectional an initiative like this one is: with education, these girls become empowered to seek positive change in other ways.
Our work in the school dormitories wasn’t the only focus on women’s empowerment. One afternoon, we visited Andean Colors, a local weaving cooperative in the Andes. The cooperative was started by a single mother who had escaped domestic violence, and is now owned by single mothers to support single mothers. We had the opportunity to feed the alpacas that are used for wool and to learn about the process of creating textiles from this material.
The trip wouldn’t be complete without a fair amount of adventure, exploration of the beautiful country that we were in, and stories to keep telling for my entire life. Mid-trip, I contracted a stomach parasite — my first real sickness in a foreign country. A couple of other friends also became sick at the same time, and we had to go on an “adventure” to the local health clinic in the middle of the night. Crazy enough, after a round of antibiotics, we took off the next day on a 2-day trek through the Andes from Lares to Patacancha. (This was certainly something that I didn’t want to miss!) We hiked the first day up to 14,000 feet in elevation before setting up camp. The next day, we reached the pass at 15,000 feet above sea level before descending. Along the way, we passed through Andean villages where we gave the women coca leaves, used commonly in high altitudes but difficult to get without a long walk to the nearest market, and children small toys. It was fascinating to see the stark contrast between the lifestyles of those we met in the Andes with our own. The children follow a similar path to school every day as the one we hiked, often walking up and down steep passes for hours. On the afternoon of the first day, two young students walked with us for over an hour from Lares until they reached their home. The night that we spent in the Andes was cold, but beautiful. The stars took over the sky, and at that altitude with no lights, it is impossible for me to recreate their intensity. Temperatures dropped below freezing overnight, and when we woke up, my hiking boots were frosted over outside of the tent!
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The day after we completed the trek, we traveled to Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu. The view of the ancient ruins from above was breathtaking, and walking through the city, we learned of its history. The city is thought to have been a place where important members of the Incan society lived. When it was eventually abandoned, all entrances were closed off. This prevented its discovery by the Spanish and allowed for its preservation.
On the final few days of our trip, we rode the rapids and took a twist. We went white water rafting on the Urubamba River, getting splashed with freezing water as we went up and down rapids before ziplining across the river. Due to a transportation and agricultural strike taking place in Peru on the day we were planning to fly out, we went to Cusco two nights early to ensure that we would be near the airport. This allowed us the opportunity to explore the city, visiting two archeological sights, various markets, and Xapiri Ground — a museum and café owned by a project working to protect the Peruvian Amazon and its indigenous people.
Along the way, I met some really incredible people. My roommates and I stayed up talking about society in the nights after we learned of the overturn of Roe v. Wade back in the United States. I talked to a mentor on the trip who shares my interests about my future studies in sustainable development. I had multiple late-night conversations, dubbed “intellectual discussions” about climate change and politics with a friend on the trip. This is an experience that challenged me to see the world through a new lens and which I will remember for the rest of my life — I am excited to apply what I learned along the way in the years to come!
